Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us

Posted By BCC Admin, On October 10th, 2013

“Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us.” Nature, vol. 502, p. 167.

“Patients with cancer generate so much revenue for the US health care industry that a cure would be an economic risk. thus argues anthropologist S. Lochlann Jain, who deems cancer “a constitutive aspect of American social life, economics, and science” — so bizarrely entwined that chemical companies churn out both cancer drugs and carcinogenic herbicides. in this trenchant mix of science history, memoir, and cultural analysis, Jain is thoughtful and often darkly humorous on everything from cancer statistics to treatments, trials and issues around sexuality. Brilliant and disturbing.”

Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us by S. Lochlann Jain (UC Press, 2013) – Nearly half of all Americans will be diagnosed with invasive cancer—an all-too ordinary aspect of daily life. Through cultural analysis and memoir, Malignant explores why cancer remains confounding, despite billions of dollars spent in the search for a cure. Amidst debates over causes and treatments, scientists generate reams of data—information that obscures as much as it clarifies. Jain unscrambles the high stakes of the confusion and explains how a national culture that simultaneously aims to deny, profit from, and cure cancer entraps us in a state of paradox—one that makes the world of cancer virtually impossible to navigate for doctors, patients, caretakers, and policy makers. A lucid guide to understanding and navigating the uncertainty at the heart of cancer, Malignant shifts the terms of an epic battle we have been losing for decades. Breast–Cancer–Social–Aspects